{"id":45675,"date":"2026-02-18T07:21:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T07:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/the-eu-is-investigating-shein-for-its-addictive-gamified-service\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T07:21:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T07:21:46","slug":"the-eu-is-investigating-shein-for-its-addictive-gamified-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/the-eu-is-investigating-shein-for-its-addictive-gamified-service\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU is investigating Shein for its &#8216;addictive,&#8217; gamified service"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699552b1a645d11881897d84?format=jpeg\" alt=\"The Shein logo is displayed on a mobile phone with the EU flag visible in the background in this photo illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on February 17, 2026.\"\/><figcaption>The EU is investigating Shein for driving addictive consumer behavior and selling illegal goods.<\/p>\n<p>Illustration by Jonathan Raa\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>The EU is investigating Shein for having an &quot;addictive design&quot; and selling illegal products.<\/li>\n<li>The European Commission said Shein uses points and rewards for engagement, which jeopardizes consumer well-being.<\/li>\n<li>Shein has been the subject of numerous probes in recent years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The European Union is going after Shein for hooking customers with what it calls &quot;addictive design.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>In a press release on Tuesday, the European Commission announced that it had launched a probe into Shein under its Digital Services Act.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission said it would investigate Shein for &quot;addictive design, the lack of transparency of recommender systems, as well as the sale of illegal products, including child sexual abuse material.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Shein&#039;s platform is addictive because it uses points and rewards for engagement, the Commission said in the press release, which could jeopardize consumer well-being. Shein, a Chinese fast fashion brand, is headquartered in Singapore.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission added in the release that it would investigate the systems that Shein has in place to limit the sale of illegal products in the European Union, such as &quot;child-like sex dolls.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The probe comes after the French government tried to have Shein&#039;s website suspended in the country last year after reports of sex doll listings on the site.<\/p>\n<p>Reuters reported in December that a Paris court had rejected the suspension and ordered Shein to implement age verification for adult products and impose a fine for any breach.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time the EU has taken action against Shein for its marketing tactics.<\/p>\n<p>In May, the bloc accused the company of deceiving customers with fake discounts and misleading information, failing to process refunds, and hiding the contact information of customer service agents, which it called a &quot;breach of EU law.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Shein has also been the subject of probes by other countries. South Korean authorities found toxic substances in quantities above legal limits in Shein&#039;s products on numerous occasions.<\/p>\n<p>And in December, a Texas court said it would investigate Shein for &quot;unethical labor practices and the sale of unsafe consumer products.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Any company that cuts corners on labor standards or product safety, especially those operating in foreign nations like China, will be held accountable,&quot; Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a press release.<\/p>\n<p>Representatives for Shein did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The EU is investigating Shein for driving addictive consumer behavior and selling illegal goods. Illustration by Jonathan Raa\/NurPhoto via Getty Images The EU is investigating Shein for having an &quot;addictive design&quot; and selling illegal products. The European Commission said Shein uses points and rewards for engagement, which jeopardizes consumer well-being. Shein has been the subject [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}